


Reflections are Skindeep

by sapsorrow



Category: Dark Souls II
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Monster Transformation, Transformation, gorgon - Freeform, magical artifact that turns people into snake things, mytha's lair is full of bullshit, pate learns not to be a greedy bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16544861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapsorrow/pseuds/sapsorrow
Summary: Pate finds something in Earthen Peak he thinks might be valuable, but there's no one around he can scam into getting it for him. Time to take matters into his own hands and brave the serpent's lair.





	Reflections are Skindeep

**Author's Note:**

> hi it's ya boi here laying down more pate shenanigans and yes i do in fact have a thing about turning pate into weird monsters. i also have one plot where he turns into a spider-centaur not unlike tark...if anyone's interested in me writing THAT. Ha haha... no but really if you have suggestions and whatnot to put this jerk through please let me know. (I will not write non-con though, sorry!)

Working alone was something he hadn't quite done for some time, Pate realized. Usually he was able to rope in some gullible fool to do whatever it was he wanted. No one really wanted to deal with a poisonous area, however. And who could blame them? He certainly didn't. But inside was a queen's domain, one who had been incredibly vain before her demise. Surely untold riches were left behind, and if the pyromancer sorceresses guarding what still stood was anything to go by, items that could very well be enchanted. 

Pate needed the souls. He wasn't much of a fighter and selling things was more is forte. He sighed, folding his arms as he stood in front of a large archway underground, having braved the poison fog and sweet-talked the sorceresses enough to have gotten away unscathed. His armor may have gotten a little singed during that last one but he couldn't complain. He was alive, after all. The mannequins had been the real challenge, and he was left with only a few life gems to spare. Pate was never one to drain his estus flask so hastily, but at least he had it for backup. Whatever was hidden behind this door could be more dangerous than anything before it.

The treasure hunter pushed the doors open after fitting in the key he'd pilfered off one of the sorceresses and stepped back in case of any sort of trap he might have set off. So far he was left with little resistance and he sighed, continuing the push until the entrance to the room was shown. Someone had been in here recently, at least by the dimly lit torches on the walls told him. Fog, although not poisonous that he could tell, covered the floor. It was hard to really see what most of the room had to offer, but the most telling was the glaringly obvious alter in the center that held up something silver and glimmering against what little light was shown. Pate's own eyes glinted with curiosity as he made his way over, shield in front of him still to defend against traps. So far he had been lucky enough to have avoided any activating tiles. 

"What do we have here?" he mused, the object finally coming into full view. He watched the steps on his way up, brow raised. Still no traps? Count himself lucky. When he reached the top of this little alter, he paused when seeing his own face reflected back at him with the same expression. "Ah..." A mirror. Of course. Mytha would have seen such an object to be revered, wouldn't she? Chuckling, Pate didn't touch it but walked around the mirror at different angles, seeing what was half propelling it. "Certainly enchanted in some way." Could it amplify beauty? Or reverse the curse effect? There was no telling, but Pate was sure he could spin a tale that would get the old saleswoman to give up some hefty souls.

Pate reached out a hand to touch the silver engravings, noticing what he had seen as vine patterns were in fact those of winding serpents. Interesting. They reminded him of the twin serpent rings he had collected in the past. Always useful, those. Perhaps with Mytha's death, most of the spells or traps that needed activated by her own magic was diminishing. He had no way of telling for sure without risking a little, so he was awfully glad he wore gloves when he touched the mirror. Last thing he needed was some acid sprayed on his hands or worse. The first thing he did, however, was step away and use his spear to nudge the mirror for a reaction. There was a long pause. Nothing. Pate hummed in suspicion as he glanced around the room. "I don't like this. It's too easy." But he had to get out of there eventually. The monsters and undead in these parts would be reviving soon and he would much rather leave Earthen Peak when nothing was crawling about. Bad form to look a gift horse in the mouth and all. 

Hesitantly, he gripped the corners of the large hand mirror and intended to yank it off the pedestal with some force, given it was suspended there by some form of magic. However, it gave way to his action quite easily and he ungracefully fell back on his arse with a surprised yelp. Pate was awfully glad no one was around to have heard or seen him. Wincing, he sat up and held the mirror by its handle then, squinting at the reflection. "You better be worth something," he muttered until his eyes widened at what he saw were yellow slitted eyes behind him in the reflection. He turned his head quickly to look, but nothing was there. 

Just as he was ready to look back at the mirror to be sure what he saw, the room began to make a rumbling sort of noise. "Oh, dear, that can't be good." What looked to be one of the odd fountains littering the castle began to activate without a stone lock-key and poured out a green fume that could be nothing else but poison. "Blast it--" Pate scurried up onto his feet, trying to stuff the mirror into one of his belt attachments and covered his mouth and nose before heading towards the door. He saw it trying to close itself and he picked up the pace. Given the fog on the ground already, he accidentally caught his boot on something and he lost his footing, tumbling forward and having to use both hands to catch himself. A bad move, given he was now free to inhale the poison.

It didn't feel like any poison he had been succumbed to before, however. It burned his nostrils at first but then he wasn't feeling anything at all - numb and practically immobile. Horrifying. Pate tried to cough and hold his breath as he crawled along the floor, trying to reach the door that was still steadily closing in front of him. "No--damn it!" Door shut, the poison, gas, fog, whatever it was, it was consuming the room. Pate tried to lift his head above it but it only rose higher. This was it, then, another fruitless death to add to his collection of mistakes. But as the minutes ticked by, he was still very much alive and breathing was becoming steadily...normal again. 

For a moment he thought all was normal, that he was just imagining this greenish fog was something to be scared of. His arms still felt a bit sluggish, but he made to push himself back onto his feet, only to feel a weighty resistance. He could move, but his legs didn't want to react as they should. They were independent limbs after all, but they only wanted to move at once. "What the devils," he groused, bending over to see if he got caught in some kind of mesh trap when he fell, waving some of the smoke away to get a better view. What he found, however, was that his pants and armor had been steadily dissolving against his skin, sloughing off to reveal both legs having begun to fuse together. 

Horrified, Pate stared wide eyed and pale, sweat dripping nervously down his face as he gulped in air he knew was very, very much worse than poison. Terror gripped him so terribly, he couldn't speak. He turned himself around and continued crawling towards the door in a desperate attempt to claw at the handle. Maybe if he got away from this toxic, transformative air and into some fresh air, it'd reverse. Fix itself. The door didn't give. "H-help--" he croaked out, banging against the metal, watching still in horror as he saw his own hand change underneath the gloves. He could feel it, the talons tearing out through the leather. "No no no, this can't be happening, what is this!" No one would be answering him, however, he knew this, but fear did not answer to logic. 

He ripped off his gloves in time to see the way his skin flaked off in patches to reveal tawny scales. The more panicked he became, the worse it seemed to get, likely due to how much air he was gulping in as he gasped. He tried to shake himself out of it, do anything else. Eventually he hunched over at his fusing legs and desperately tried to claw and separate the skin there but it was no use. The center had grown to thick and patches of scales were spreading fast, mottled with darker spots and a softer, wider set of milky scales to shape the belly of a snake. 

Pate felt sick, eyes focused on the disappearing of his own feet as they melded and shaped to the growing length of what he knew was a snake's body. Half of himself was _gone_ , he realized, as he scrambled to pull up his shirt and belt-skirt to feel only more scales and added mass of muscle. The snake half was expanding, but it didn't look to be going further than his navel. "Nnnggg...w-why isss thissss happening," he whimpered, his words changing as his tongue nearly split in two. As it flicked free from his lips, he squirmed along the ground as if trying to escape his own body that wouldn't let him. What used to be his legs seemed to only keep growing in length and adding to the weight of his lower half. It was impossible to drag himself around without moving it and he was very clearly not adjusted to that change at all. 

He panted, tears starting to sting at the edge of his eyes, as if feeling his pupils change to something more reptilian. Like in the

 _mirror_.

Pate's eyes lit up with something like hope for a moment as he went to yank it off his belt. Yes, the mirror! It was causing this somehow, had activated this horrible air that was changing him. He hissed at it, ready to smash it into the ground until he saw himself. He wasn't wrong about his eyes. Wide, golden, pupil slit and alien to him. Patches of scales had formed around his cheeks, under his eyes. He could barely recognize himself. "No," he groaned, dropping the mirror instantly as if it bit him, clawed hands coming to his face and wincing as something sharp scraped along his lips. "Ah--" he had to open his mouth in time for some of his human teeth to fall out and allow the fangs to lengthen and release itself from the roof of his mouth. Shakily, he pushed himself away from the floor and gagged at the drool that had built up -- or was it venom now? He couldn't be sure. He spit and tried to control the spasms throughout his body. Nothing hurt, no, it was all painless. It didn't feel right, however. It was wrong. So so wrong. 

Finally the fangs allowed his own mouth to close without too much issue, but it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like his mouth anymore. Or his body. This room was a curse. Of course it was. This was the _real_ punishment for trespassing. Was he to take her damned place in this horrible fallen castle? Pate wanted to find the mirror on the ground and smash it with his fists. At least he finally found it underneath the fog, his lower half coiling behind him. He was ready to smash it, but just as his fist was ready to hit the glass, his reflection changed.   
  
It wasn't this alien creature he'd turned into, but his normal self. Hesitantly, a clawed thumb brushed against the glass before he retracted it out of fear of scratching away the image. His brows furrowed, confused. Had the mirror stolen his identity from him? Surely there was a way to get it back. He had to get out of here. 

Just as he hoped the transformation had ended, he was so very wrong. Before, it had been painless, but he could feel everything now. Along the spinal curve sprouted black spines that traveled further down to the tip of his tail like a mace. He screamed, the agony nothing short than being stabbed multiple times. Pate arched and writhed along the floor, the ring of thorns digging into the flesh of his hand nothing compared to _this_. And still it wasn't done. No, bits of his hair fell to the floor almost in clumps, and to his sheer horror, what took its place were separate, hissing snakes. 

This was bad. It was getting worse. Despite the pain, despite his disgust and horror, Pate had to get out no matter what. He screamed again, horns sprouting from his skull as his helmet fell to the ground from the force. He thought he might pass out, but he didn't out of desperation. He charged the door with what strength he could must, as if the new part of him would even let him. But surprisingly the door gave way under him and he fell onto the other side with a wheeze and a cough as he tried to get rid of the fumes in his lungs.   
  
Exhausted, he tried to lift his aching head in time to see the desert sorceresses in front of him, tapping their fans silently in amusement. His vision began to black out as he dropped his head, words caught in his throat as one of the women stepped forward to give what he could only make out as a sarcastic curtsy.

"Looks like we found ourselves a new regent, girls."


End file.
